Re: RAT (not about) COLUMBINE

[Audie McCall <audiemccall@yahoo.com>]

You're absolutely right.  I was reading something into
your comment that you hadn't intended, and your
explication of the "Good art is evil" aphorism is
compelling and clear.  What's more, I find myself
agreeing at something mere minutes ago I balked at. 
(Words are wonderfully stupid that way.)

As for the question of whether "good" art means moral,
or aesthetically excellent, I think the reason I have
difficulty distinguishing the two is that for me,
aesthetically sound art is moral 'cuz by definition it
"gets the job done".  And moral art-- as opposed to
moralizing art-- is beautiful in that fights the
"good" fight.  Now, I can already sense a lot of folks
going for their Nietzsche holsters, i.e. "Whatever is
done for love (read art) is beyond good and evil."  Or
their Lao Tzu, "Under heaven all can see beauty as
beauty only because there is ugliness.  All can know
good as good only because there is evil.", and I am
deeply sympathetic, especially to my buddy Lao Tzu,
but I think once we step "beyond good and evil" we
have to step further, beyond Nietzsche, off the
mountain top and back into the world.

Artists are servants, not masters.  If we can offer
wider perspectives to folks in desperate need of
seeing the world in an ever-broadening way (tao), we
have done our moral duty.  If we slap at our
audiences, taunt and tease them, prod and push them,
they will shut down or lash back.  I consider such art
immoral, as I do art that "fiddles while Rome burns". 


Spacing out staring at some time-worn pottery, Keats
blurts out: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty./That is
all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."  At
first glance this thought can seem facile, insipid,
hopelessly naïve.  But if we’re talking true beauty,
the beauty of ever widening realization and
understanding, then nothing could be more profound.


--- Ezra Buzzington <jonoh1@juno.com> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:08:10 -0700 (PDT) Audie
> McCall
> <audiemccall@yahoo.com> writes:
> >--- Ezra Buzzington <jonoh1@juno.com> wrote:
> >But I'm
> >> confused by your statement
> >> that  "our job as artists becomes to engage bad
> art
> >> with good". Do you
> >> mean "bad" ( and good) in an aesthetic sense, or
> >> moral?
> >> Good art is evil,
> >> Jonathan
> >
> >I'm not convinced of the difference.  Perhaps you
> can
> >enlighten me.
> 
> I don't know. Maybe. Do you mean  "good" as in
> aesthetically
> pleasing/socially redeeming/emotionally fulfilling
> -whatever floats the
> viewers subjective boat? Or "good" as in a state of
> being. It's good to
> help. It's bad to kill. Like that?
> >
> >"Good art is evil."?
> 
> >
> >Are we beating our head against the semantic wall
> here
> >for our amusement?  Fiddling while Rome burns?
> 
> An actor knows that when they are playing an "evil"
> character they must
> search for the reasons s/he behaves as s/he does and
> they must find
> something "good" to cling to in building a
> three-dimensional character.
> Otherwise they're doing melodrama or somesuch. All
> good art is inherently
> evil because humankind has the potential for evil
> within the soul. It
> must be present at all times otherwise there is no
> balance. And I
> certainly don't mean to be beating my (as oppossed
> to "our") head against
> anything. I'm just asking a question. And my friends
> will tell you that,
> though I am easily amused, I don't generally indulge
> myself. Oh, and, I
> can't play the fiddle.
> >
> >"Freedom is slavery."  Right back at ya!
> 
> Okay. Sure. I guess. But I think you're reading
> something into my writing
> that is completely unintended.
> On the run,
> Jonathan
> 

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